POS for Post-Black Friday Insights

Data is everything when it comes to predicting consumer behavior — both now and in the future.

Two of the busiest shopping days of the year are approaching: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While most businesses see these days as opportunities to boost sales, in reality, they offer great data points to predict short-term and long-term sales trends.

Below is a look at the evolution of Black Friday and how a great POS can yield a variety of insights to help you gain an edge over your competitors this holiday season.

How has Black Friday evolved over the years?

Technological advances and the evolution of Black Friday have combined to completely transform the behavior of holiday shoppers. Consumers are now taking command of the purchasing process, using their mobile devices to search for the best offers and craft their holiday purchasing strategy.

Today’s shoppers are keenly aware that retailers are competing for their business, especially during the holidays. Consumers are only getting smarter, and as a result they often remain on watch until they find the most compelling retail offers.

How can Black Friday POS data help you optimize your sales?

In order to maintain an edge in today’s increasingly competitive retail landscape, businesses need to pay closer attention than ever to consumer buying patterns and top-selling products.

Pinpoint shopping behaviors

With Erply, POS data can be analyzed alongside high and low traffic areas in your store to help determine why customers choose to stay or leave your store.

We mentioned that customers are on high alert during the holiday season, which means you’ll need to be creative. Luckily, Erply is flexible enough that retailers can easily generate custom reports depending on the needs of their store.

Let’s say your store’s loyalty program is popular, but you want to figure out ways to grow it in new demographics. Generating reports on promotions and loyalty program performance will give you eyes on what deals customers appreciated the most.

Maybe Promotion X resulted in more signups than Promotion Y in some stores. Erply makes this information easy to find and act on. Rework promotions that were less successful or follow up with more aggressive rewards incentives to keep new signups interested in your store.

Because Erply was built with customization in mind, promotions can be pushed out to only specific groups of customers, such as new loyalty program adopters.

Enhance your store layout

Black Friday POS data can help you design a store layout that is more conducive to increased sales and less store congestion — especially during peak holiday times.

For instance, if POS data reveals that jewelry sales accounted for a disproportionate amount of your Black Friday sales, you can adjust your store layout to accommodate more jewelry counters and surrounding space.

Make top selling products easier for customers to locate, or station an employee with a mobile POS near those popular items.

Customer experience is a huge trend for retail stores across the US, and understanding this data helps you create a data-driven in-store experience.

Streamline your supply chain operations

Real-time access to POS data helps you stay on top of inventory and ensures top-selling products don’t sell out. Rather than waiting for items to dip below a certain threshold, your POS can keep inventory moving at a healthy rate, no matter how busy your store gets.

Use the data you obtain to establish automatic alerts that prompt you to reorder products fast-selling products. Erply’s custom reorder points let you set a different reorder threshold for different inventory. Our system makes it easy to adjust reorder values so you can adapt to the holiday season.

Once the rush dies down, check your POS data to see how often you reordered -or transferred- inventory.

Did certain locations require more adjustments to their reorder points to accommodate the rush? Great. Go forward with this knowledge to inform future promotions or holiday deals.

Erply will notify you before any reorders are placed, so you can test the waters with new reorder points as the holiday season winds down without fear of overstocking.

How can Black Friday POS data help you compete on Cyber Monday?

Many people associate Cyber Monday exclusively with online shopping. However, brick and mortar stores can use their Black Friday POS data to immediately launch personalized marketing initiatives to encourage shoppers to return to their stores on Cyber Monday.

Offer specials on accessories for top selling products

We talked about how Erply’s real-time sales tracking can help you identify the top products sold on Black Friday. But if you take your analysis a step further, you can push sales on inventory that are often paired with those top sellers.

Think sales on replacement accessories or consumables that are often purchased with those top-sellers. Some retailers even use this as an opportunity to sell slow moving inventory by pairing them with top sellers.

These also mark a great opportunity to use Erply’s bundling and assembly inventory tools to push out sales.

After identifying those products, you can prepare customized marketing promotions that offer discounted pricing on popular accessories to encourage repeat business.

Entice shoppers to enjoy the benefits of a live shopping experience on Cyber Monday

Not every shopper enjoys the online shopping experience that Cyber Monday brings. Brick and mortar businesses offer a refreshing change of pace for shoppers who want to resume their shopping after Black Friday but avoid website failures spurred by Cyber Monday’s high traffic.

Erply’s POS and sales data can identify those shoppers who purchased from your store on Black Friday so that you can invite them to enjoy the benefits of shopping in-store on Cyber Monday:

One suggestion is to print in-store Cyber Monday coupons and only distribute them to Black Friday shoppers — both online and in person.

Tracking the performance of the specialized coupons will give you insights into:

How many shoppers returned to your store on Cyber Monday.

What items were popular sellers as repeat or followup purchases.

Erply’s CRM tools make customer data easy, whether you’re adding new customers, updating existing customers, or looking for ways to connect and share with those customers.

How can you select the best POS provider for your business?

We emphasized the need for a point of sale to help analyze and act upon valuable Black Friday Data. How do you know which POS is right for your store?

Here are a few of the top qualities to seek in a POS provider:

A robust inventory system that will grow with your business.

Live phone support 7 days a week to ensure smooth store operations.

A history of impressive results working with businesses similar to your own.

Encrypted data with 24/7 backup to give you peace of mind.

Customizable plugins to help your specific business achieve its sales goals.

From back office functionality to highly customizable business functions, Erply can help your business succeed even beyond the retail holidays. Our software is light enough that small businesses aren’t overwhelmed but powerful enough that enterprises are able to dive deep into each POS feature.

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